Silver Mind
by Takigawa Aki
Summary: Mukuro teaches Chrome the ways of dreams while exploring Kyouya's nightmares. Is there something more deep in his subconscious or is there no meaning at all?


I think this might be kind of good. Oh my! Could this be true? Check your totem!~ (KHRFest again)

**Prompt:** Hibari+Mukuro+Chrome (not necessarily romantic) - dreams; "inception - the act of planting an idea in the subconscious mind." (KHRFest)

**Silver Mind**

"Is there anyone you want, little Chrome?"

The question caught her by surprise. Mukuro had been with her, in the way that he could be, for awhile now. He wasn't usually in a mood to make idle conservation or to share his observations with her, but this was one of those odd times when, she suspected, he might have been feeling lonely, isolated in his cell. He wouldn't ever tell her what it was like, whether he was awake or asleep there, if he could move or if he was bound. After a little while she'd stopped asking.

"Want?" she whispered, her head tilted thoughtfully.

Her body was still hers for now, still Chrome, petite and wide-eyed, though he guided her steps. On days like this she wanted him to be able to see everything he wanted to see, to have as much of the outside world as he could through her eyes. Though she wouldn't mention it, sometimes he seemed not even to realize as he took control so gently to walk where he pleased. It was those times that she felt her shoulders rise a little into a strong position, her chin tilted upwards to look around without a hint of trepidation, and sometimes she wished she could walk like that even when he didn't move her body for her.

"Yes," he purred inside her mind, his voice the soft caress it always was, but now he seemed distant. Sometimes it worried her when he sounded like this but now she just thought he was deep in some sort of puzzle, trying to work it out though he wouldn't tell her what it was. "Someone who you want to be there with you when they're gone."

"You mean someone I miss?" At first she thought if he were asking, in his roundabout way, whether she wanted him here with her. He didn't falter in the steps, turning a corner leisurely, avoiding a small hole in the concrete of the sidewalk. The red brick on her right was worn but sturdy, an old shop. But he seemed to be thinking too hard for something so obvious.

He was quiet for a moment before he replied. "I suppose." It seemed as if he hadn't thought of it that way before. "Someone who you want to pay attention to you or to be attached to you, even if it's for no particular reason."

Her nod was tiny enough not to attract attention from the people she passed. "Not really," she said, though it was a lie. If anything, he was describing what she felt about him, but he must have known that by now. He was thinking too deeply to realize such a foolish mistake. "Why, Mukuro-sama?"

Mukuro hummed softly, an odd effect in her mind but one she was used to. "Have I taught you of inception yet, my cute little Chrome?" he purred suddenly.

Hm? He only called her that when he was about to pay her a lot of attention. Her violet eyes blinked in curiosity as she thought about it. It didn't sound familiar. "No," she told him honestly. "Inception?"

There was the impression of him nodding somewhere. "I didn't think so. Let me show you, then, what it is. It isn't like what I've taught you before."

Something new? She thought he'd already shown her the basics of most everything, though she wasn't as adept as he, and didn't have the abilities herself that came with his six paths. While she'd like to have such power the thought of those always made her shiver a little bit. Sometimes when he contacted her in the middle of the night, never saying anything, only letting their minds touch as if to ensure himself of her presence, she thought she could hear the echoes of screams and unearthly sounds as if from far away. She didn't want to know what he dreamed about.

"This is…" The building was familiar, a three-story apartment nestled near the middle school the Vongola decimo attended, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Perhaps she'd only passed by it in the past. He didn't pause, stepping right into the front door as if he lived there and up the stairs. He knew where he was going though he'd never mentioned the place, but she was used to his mysterious ways.

There was no hesitation as he sauntered up to the third floor and headed down the hall, not bothering to answer her short inquiry. She fell silent, waiting for it to come clear as it always did with him. The doorknob turned easily beneath the touch, though she heard the snap of bolts from the other side. Had he moved them without her even knowing? Quietly he stepped inside though he didn't take off her shoes. They were clean, anyway, and he only walked normally through the small, sparsely-furnished but immaculately organized main room. Down a short hall were two doors; one she assumed the bathroom, the other the bedroom. He walked into the latter silently, closing the door behind her. For some reason she was beginning to get anxious, though she always felt safe with Mukuro in control. Something felt different than usual. An intensity from the boy that she'd never felt before.

He didn't replace her body with his as he knelt without a sound beside a futon, instead kept her shape so she could more easily see what was going on. A small movement in front of her brought a mental gasp that he was quick to shush from becoming audible. There was someone sleeping on the futon, buried in a thick duvet and obviously asleep. Short, dark hair was sticking up in all directions as if he'd been tossing and turning but now he was still, only shifting a little.

"Inception," he whispered in her mind, "is to manipulate the unconscious mind, or the subconscious, by implanting an idea."

She was struck silent for a long moment. "You mean to enter their minds when they sleep?"

"Yes." The smile in his voice was evident. "Here." He lifted her hands then and laid her palms ever so lightly on the pillow to either side of the sleeping boy and leaned over so their foreheads touched softly. Again she had to bite back a gasp. Closer in the darkness, she recognized him. Before she could object her mind went blank, pulled with his into his illusion.

Abruptly everything changed. She was aware of her body, still in the same position as if frozen, but like seeing that from one eye and this from the other, the two worlds overlapped until it eventually came into focus and the real faded to the back of her awareness. Sharp sounds echoed around her, endlessly louder than they ought to have been, and the clouds above moved much too quickly, in the way of dreams. Concrete was beneath her feet—no, his feet; she realized the illusion was now of his body here in the dream—and she realized they were on a roof.

So how were there sakura trees overhead? She couldn't trace the spiraling branches to trunks but still it was everywhere. Petals fell now and then, sometimes entire flowers, to litter the ground. Still Mukuro's steps made no sound while he walked towards the source of the noises, his expression faintly curious. Chrome couldn't help but wonder how often he'd done this sort of thing.

Abruptly there was silence and Mukuro walked out into an open space far too wide to be the roof but still there nonetheless. The clouds were barely visible now between the sakura, so thick it was overhead. The boy's back was to them as his shoulders rose and fell heavily beneath his jacket, facing the openness fiercely. Silver flashed in his hands.

"Kyouya," Mukuro whispered. The boy did not turn, but he stiffened.

"I won't fall for that again," he declared suddenly. "When I turn to you they sneak through behind me."

Suddenly the dream was an open book though they'd only been there for a few minutes. As if the dream was recounting itself. The roof of the school, the edge widening slowly, slowly, and gaining speed until it seemed to have no end. The sakura encroaching on the sky, dropping leaves and flowers to the ground, eventually covering the blue and white above. Then _them_, though she still was uncertain what _they_ were. Something shadowy, something without form, but still something that must not pass, pouring from the open world that went unexplored, alien, and trying to enter his.

Then there was Mukuro, what should not be there any more than they but still was a part of his world and thus had already broken through to attack him from behind, to distract him, to sabotage him. When he spoke, _they_ got through, flooding into his world, his part of the school rooftop that was no longer just a rooftop but his entire existence. Her breath hitched in her throat. Did he feel so adrift, pulled into the world of the mafia as he had been?

"Kyouya," Mukuro said again, this time louder. "Come here."

There was a pause. "Before you always simply attacked me," the boy whispered. He was still staring out at the empty expanse though nothing stirred but the trees. Finally he spun, his lips a thin line and his eyes angrily focused. "Why is this dream different?"

So he knew it was a dream, in the way that one realizes it during a dream yet it still continues. The mind was a powerful thing, something labyrinthine that one could lose themselves in, or be locked into.

"Come here." Again his voice softened. She realized he wasn't holding the trident, stood unarmed. Could he get hurt here? No, this was not like other illusions; she didn't think he could be hurt here for real.

To her surprise, Kyouya came. He stepped forward slowly and finally collapsed into his arms as if resigning himself to his fate. In the past, if Mukuro won his attention, he lost. But now nothing changed. The illusionist's arms wrapped gently around his shoulders, holding him up as Kyouya stiffened in surprise. "No knife in my back?" he questioned bitterly, words muffled against Mukuro's jacket.

"No." His lips turned upwards in a smile that didn't hold his usual secrets. Only a smile, not a smirk. "Why am I your enemy here?"

"You beat me." It was a reflexive response, and the boy tensed at having let it slip. "You're from the mafia. I can't keep you or the rest of them out."

"Why do you want to?"

"Namimori is mine."

"Ah." Chrome expected to hear some arrogance in his voice but there was none; only soft understanding. Had she not been so bewildered she might have become jealous.

"I want you out of my life, Rokudou Mukuro, and take it all with you."

"But now that you've seen what's out there, can you truly return to your birdcage, even if it is Namimori?"

That made Kyouya pause. He hadn't moved from leaning forward against the illusionist. Now he stepped back, looking shrewdly up at his face. "This isn't like my dreams," he accused softly.

"Dreams never seem that way." Again a little smile that was utterly unlike Mukuro. "The sakura are your weakness; they should not cover up your strength, little cloud." He looked up at the trees, and abruptly they seemed thinner. The white swirls above became more visible, still roiling violently. "You are only defending your cage. Why not step out of it now?"

That puzzled him. "Step out of it?"

"You haven't gone past your ground here, have you?" Mukuro offered a gloved hand and Kyouya took it warily. "Why does it matter if something gets in? The world will always change, even cages. They rust and are polished and rust again. Eventually they decay and fall, no longer able to hold their occupants, who fly free or are trapped to die the same as their cage. So leave it. You are a cloud, so the sky only should be your cage."

He stepped slowly outside of the square, holding the boy's fingers in his own. "Come," he whispered. The ground was no different. The sakura retreated slowly though the petals still lay scattered across the concrete. Suddenly it was openness around them until the trees were almost gone. The clouds above them calmed to slow trails through the sky.

"Kyouya." Mukuro leaned toward him, their breaths mingling as their eyes met. His lips curled upwards. "Clouds are meant to fly."

Everything went black. Her toes tingled, her knees protesting as he stood slowly, careful not to wake the still-sleeping boy. His breathing was slow and deliberate and she thought she may have heard him murmur something in his sleep but she couldn't tell. Mukuro walked out as quietly as he'd come, the front door once again locking behind them as he stepped down the stairs and out again to the street.

"What idea was it that you gave him?" she asked softly.

There was a pause as he deliberated how to answer. "That birds are the same when they leave their cage."

"They don't change?"

"No. They are still birds, only free."

She didn't say anything until they were far away and he had once again retreated into his thoughts, though as always he guided her steps. He seemed more satisfied now than before. "Is that the person you want to pay attention to you?" she said abruptly.

His step paused in midair before he caught himself and continued. "Maybe it is, little Chrome," he chuckled suddenly. "Maybe it is."


End file.
